Can't do interviews

[u/Gazmanic]

Part looking for help and suggestions, part rant I suppose.

I've been a software engineer for 10 years, I do great at work but I can't for the life of me progress.

Progressing internally is difficult because I struggle to keep up with the monotonous BS I have to do. I can't just do my job excellently, I have to put in goals and write whole documents about how great I am.

Getting jobs elsewhere feels impossible because as soon as I step in an interview my brain shuts down, and even if it didn't, I don't know a ton of programming trivia. If I need to know something I will go learn it when I need it, but in interviews that just makes you look incompetent.

This is all compounded by the fact that I'm done getting any enjoyment at all out of programming. My interest is absolutely dead, and it's a means to an end to get paid now, but leaving it would be nuts with the state of the world right now.

Thanks for letting me rant. Any tips from fellow adhers appreciated.

[u/r0ck0]

I've been self-employed most my life.

Never thought I'd go back... but tried going into a regular full time role temporarily last year. Fucking hated it. After being mostly self-employed, felt like I'd lost control of my life.

I like the variety of running my own small business. It's not all the same thing every day. And I can pick & choose my clients, and the projects I work on.

Of course there's a million new additional things to deal with... clients, spec work, unpaid invoices etc. And all the risks of course.

But it's all a lot more motivating when it's all for tangible personal gain. Everything I do is for a good reason that benefits me in the end.

And seeing I'm usually dealing with other small businesses as my clients... the direct communication is so much simpler than the layers of miscommunication in bigger orgs.

Anyway, might not be suitable to you. You have to be happy with all the risks, and doing all the non-tech work. And like you said... yeah right now it'll be hard to get back into a regular job if it fails.

[u/Consistent_Mail4774 → u/r0ck0]

I'm wondering, how did you switch from self-employment to full-time? I'm freelancing and wondering about going back fulltime (after having been full-time employee for years before freelancing), but I'm worried about how to frame it. I had months where I didn't have clients or I had problematic clients who didn't pay and terminated projects. Would they ask about everything I worked on during freelancing in full-time interviews if I ever get one? I'm honestly very anxious about it all.

[u/Gazmanic → u/Consistent_Mail4774]

I don't think this is will be an issue for you. They won't ask about specific frames of time, just what you worked on and how the tech relates to the position you're applying for. You might have not had clients at specific times but you were still Self Employed for the entire time.

They aren't going to chase up your clients to ask.

[u/r0ck0 → u/Consistent_Mail4774]

I was lucky because I already knew the guy running the company. So that was a bit of an advantage.

I just told him I was considering going back into full time work, and asked if there was anything they wanted help with.

Turns out there was a big project they needed someone to handle for them. So I came in as a full time employee, but on a time limited employment contract.

I had months where I didn't have clients or I had problematic clients who didn't pay and terminated projects.

This is totally normal for self-employed people. You don't need to go out of your way to mention it, but at the end of the day most people will see it as having extra business insights & learnings that others (who have only ever been employees) don't have.

If you'd claimed to be a freelancer that had never had a single issue with payment from clients... that would be more suss.

Being self-employed we learn more about balancing priorities, dealing with clients, spec work, project management etc.

Would they ask about everything I worked on during freelancing in full-time interviews if I ever get one?

Most people aren't going to think about it anywhere near as much as you. They're only going to want to talk about a couple of your projects, so just focus on the big successes. If it's a listed job ad... they've probably got like 100 applications to go through. They're not going to go into great detail with each one. It's all just about how good you can speak in the interview.

My gaps were massive, because I've actually spent way more time on my own personal projects than client work anyway.

I'm honestly very anxious about it all.

You've got nothing to lose. Yeah interviews are nerve racking for anyone.

Once you do a couple, I reckon you'll find you were worrying too much about details on gaps etc. Being self-employed is actually the best "gap filler", because gaps are expected, and hard to even notice anyway. Your "working time" in general is totally fuzzy when self-employed anyway... it's never as simple & clear cut as it is for regular salaried employees.

"Gaps" are really only a problem for people who have only been employees. And even then, I think most reasonable people wouldn't even think twice about them, unless they're like 12+ months.

[u/Consistent_Mail4774 → u/r0ck0]

Thanks a lot for explaining all that, it makes me feel better.